We may hear our heart say, “It’s hopeless!” but we should argue back. We should say, “Well, that depends on what you were hoping in. Was that the right thing to put so much hope in?” Notice how the psalmist analyzes his own hopes—“Why are you so cast down, O my soul?” Notice that he admonishes himself. “Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him.” The psalmist is talking to his heart, telling it to go to God, looking to God. D. M. Lloyd-Jones, in a sermon on this text, says that the psalmist is downcast but is taking up an important strategy that you must use when you are discouraged.
